Three Liam Finn Shows and a Baby

BY SALLY CONOR

Before I begin, let me get one thing straight: I am not stalking Liam Finn. The fact that I went to all three of his Auckland shows recently is not testament to any slavish fandom, unlike the fact that I attended both Ryan Adams shows in August, which sprang from my abiding obsession with and slightly scary infatuation with said musician. Don’t get me wrong. I like Liam’s music a lot and I really enjoy his gigs. But I don’t want any of you getting the wrong idea. Having said that, I found myself showing up to all three shows. Mostly coz my friends did. But it turned out to be a very interesting exercise in how live music can be transformed by surroundings, audience and the relative drunkenness of the performers and punters alike.

Thursday 8th November, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Newton
The only dry show of the three, and boy was the lack noticeable. The audience were all weirdly respectful and quiet. Almost too quiet because in between songs where there is usually the din of conversation and bar-fights and shouting, there fell an expectant silence. As the applause died from the previous song, the audience seemed to collectively say “That was nice, now what are you going to play next? Huh? HUH??!” Enjoyably for us, the result was BANTER. With the musicians also stone-cold sober, the on-stage banter was of varying quality, but most of it was very funny. The best call of the night was when Liam’s tour partner EJ Barnes told him his face “looks like a vagina”. We all cheered and clapped whilst wondering, are you allowed to say ‘vagina’ in church?
The show itself was awesome. The acoustics of the church really did the music justice and when things got noisy and experimental, our enjoyment was enhanced by feelings of delicious guilt brought on by listening to crazy rock ‘n’ roll music in a house of God. When our eyes wandered from the antics of our hosts, the church provided gorgeous architectural eye-candy of jewel-bright stained glass, warm polished wood and pleasing proportions and shapes. And down the front, the cutest baby in the world was running riot clad in little yellow headphones. It was really funny. And all of this was made possible as a result of the gig being held at a church. The family-friendly atmos, lack of mood-altering beverages and beauty of the room really made the music the focus of the night and I left feeling as if I had just worshipped at the altar of sweet riffs and loop-pedals.
(NB Me and my companion for the night enjoyed the evening so much that we resolved to attend an actual service at the church the following Sunday. We showed up but pathetically wussed out in favour of worshipping the divine Coffee and Croissant at Benediction. At least the café had a religious name.)

Thursday 15th November, The King’s Arms Tavern
I think most people have experienced a night at the King’s Arms when it is sold out - shoulder-to-shoulder packed, hot, smelly and often unpleasant. Feeling unwilling to tackle the mosh, my friend and I stayed down the back most of the night which I later regretted as it was probably the finest show of the tour. Liam was in fine voice and at his daring best in terms of pushing the boat out with experimentation. He played an incredibly gnarly drum-fill at one point. EJ was wearing a really beautiful velvet mermaid dress and was forced to sing one of her own songs by Liam which actually provided a really nice change of pace. Everyone sang along to the big numbers, especially ‘Gather To The Chapel’. Are these things possibly due to the fact that everyone was lubricated by alcohol? Probably. I think it is no accident that drugs and alcohol are so indelibly associated with music. They really do seem to facilitate risk-taking and freedom of expression and awesome drum fills. The crowd was a lot noisier than at the church but then the response to the music was also a lot more enthusiastic.
The King’s Arms isn’t the most inspiring of venues but the way it compresses people into a narrow space seems to create a special kind of atmosphere and focus of collective energy which may have something to do with its longevity as a venue. I wish I’d been right up the front in the thick of it.

Saturday 17th November, The Leigh Sawmill Cafe
On arriving, the first thing we heard was that the musicians had all gotten completely wasted in Wellington the night before and hadn’t been to sleep. Support act Dictaphone Blues appeared wearing a scarf around his head which he said was “holding my brains in”. Our expectations for the show dropped a bit. Then we found out that we weren’t allowed to order food so started drinking on empty stomachs which raised our expectations again (hurrah!). I found scotch and soda to be a very agreeable alternative to dinner. One of my favourite things about the Leigh Sawmill is the way people seated upstairs can peer down at the stage from behind the musicians. With the stage surrounded by expectant punters, the room starts to feel a bit like a coliseum (Which way will it go?? Thumbs up?? Or thumbs down??!!). Watching how performers react to scrutiny is always sadistically fun. Tonight, they responded with alacrity. Liam and EJ were definitely a bit quiet on the banter front (which was a shame as they’re so good at it) but otherwise showed no signs of party fatigue on stage, playing a blistering set that included a tremendous Neil Young cover. You know a musician is good when every time he starts a new song, you say to the person beside you ‘oh THIS is my favourite’ which is more or less what I did. But the highlight was the final song, ‘Wide Awake On The Voyage Home’. A beautiful, elegiac sprawling thing that was the perfect send-off and the enthusiastic country crowd sang along and provided thunderous applause.

Three different nights, three different venues, three different levels of inebriation all made for three incredibly varied but similarly awesome musical experiences. I think the church gig was my favourite for the sheer beauty of the building and the way the unusual circumstances produced a really enjoyable variant of the normal rock ‘n’ roll show, what with vagina talk and cute rampant babies and all. When musicians get creative with venues like this it really pays off for everyone involved and with our already dire number of venues for gigs and the rumoured imminent demise of several other key sites, experimentation like this ought to be encouraged, nay, ought to become the norm. Now if only we can find a way to convince the Church that whiskey and soda promotes holiness in heathens…



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